WWOOF Italy: The Rest of Sergio's Story

The Rest of Sergio’s Story

My entry from February 19 ended with Sergio’s passing remark about his uncles, who “had to come to America because they had killed some people.” Several days later, I got the rest of the story.

Sergio’s grandmother grew up in the country outside of Sarno (which is a village right outside of Napoli) with six brothers and six sisters. Her father had been a socialist and fairly successful until Mussolini came to power with a government and supporters who harassed non-fascists. The local Mussolini Youth (like the Boy Scouts, who were originally meant to be the last line of war defense, as Sergio put it), constantly came onto the family’s property to harass them. They threw rocks, harassed the girls, and vandalized the property. Soon Sergio’s great grandfather could no longer let his girls leave the compound, even to do the errands, and he built a fence enclosing the entire property. The boys continued to harass, and one night they broke onto the property. After so much time and so many warnings, one of Sergio’s grandmother’s uncles had had enough. He grabbed a shotgun and walked outside to put an end to it. Soon her brothers woke up, heard the commotion, grabbed their guns, and joined. By the end, all of the Mussolini Youth—about twenty of them—lay dead on their property. So all seven brothers fled to America. And here is where it connects to Sergio: these were the brothers that Sergio’s father later fled Italy to join in the Bronx, to evade a future of farming.

After Sergio had told me the first story, relevant to a previous conversation, he offered another, relevant to nothing but fun nonetheless.

Have you ever heard of Neapolitan Mastiffs? Apparently they have been breed for centuries to be very smart work dogs. While a herding dog learns general duties and the associated orders, a Neapolitan Mastiff can obey orders as specific as, “run home and bring me the hammer”. Sergio’s grandmother’s father, Victorino, had a nice property outside of Sarno, but he left to buy and cultivate a property in the Bronx. He left his brother, Antonello, in charge of the property in Italy. Antonello one day realized that someone had been stealing fruit from his trees, and soon he discovered who it was.
“Listen, he said. You can’t be stealing fruit from my trees. There is plenty of fruit—come to me to ask for it and I’ll give it to you, if you like. But you can’t steal it; it will make my brother look bad and other people will think that they can just come and steal it, also.” It was not long before Antonello discovered the same man stealing again. Antonello snuck up on him one night in action and yelled, “Hey! I thought I told you to stop stealing fruit from my brother’s trees!” The man immediately grabbed a hatchet from behind his back and began hacking away at Antonello. Antonello somehow made it back to his house, but everyone expected him to die. There were no hospitals—“as this was Napoli” said Sergio, as if to say “if you know Napoli, you don’t need any explanation more than this”—so they got him to the closest doctor in Napoli. The police heard what had happened and came. “We know what happened. Seeing as how you are going to die at this point, tell us who did this to you. Don’t worry. We’ll take care of it,” they said—“as this was Napoli”. Antonello told them that he didn’t know who it was; he didn’t get a good look at the man. (Why would he have done that? —“This was Napoli” i.e. the only respectable response to any wrong is to right it yourself. Defend your pride at all costs, but don’t get the police involved.) After several long months, Antonello made a full recovery. While everyone thought him dead, he returned home ready for his revenge. The man had continued to steal fruit from his trees, so one night Antonello went out to meet him. He said, “Hey! I thought I told you to stop stealing fruit from my brother’s trees!” and before the man could act Antonello said to his Neapolitan mastiff, who had been standing behind him, “kill that man”. The dog ripped the man apart…and Antonello fled to America.

(Brief pause...lead into next story)

Antonello arrived to the Bronx to his brother’s property.

“I thought I told you to stay and look after the property in Sarno!” Victorino exclaimed when he saw his brother.
“And I did, but I killed someone so I had to flee!”
“Alright, now you’ll have to stay with this property while I go back to Italy, and this time don’t kill anyone!” Victorino returned to Italy with his wife and daughters. At this point Sergio’s grandmother—perhaps around twelve—was the oldest girl. As the oldest girl, it was her duty to do the shopping, but all the same father sent her out with the mastiffs to make sure that she stayed safe. Of course, nobody went near her; the dogs already had a reputation. One day, Victorino opened the door to a group of angry townsmen.

“What is the matter, men?”
“We want our coats back.”

What? Apparently, Sergio’s grandmother had been having fun on her errands, telling the smart and well-trained dogs to “yank that man’s coat off of him” or “bring me that man’s coat from his chair”. As they knew the possible repercussions (word got out what had happened to the fruit thief), for weeks the men had done nothing to stop the dogs. Her father went into her room to find a pile of men’s coats under her bed. She was severely punished, but Sergio claims that she recalls this story with pride and loving memories of the mastiffs.